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In this installment, we are going to describe how we form strips of ties and attach them to the layout.

The first step is to prepare the roadbed for receiving the ties. The process here is no different than preparing the roadbed for any other type of track. My standard procedure is to lay down cork roadbed on top of the completed base scenery, and then paint the base scenery and roadbed with a brown color.

In this case, you will notice I am using a combination of stained wooden ties and PC Board ties. Since the piece of track I am building is on a module, I want it to be more secure than simply gluing the rail in place will allow. The rail will be soldered to these ties after the glue dries.

Once the ties are inserted, a strip of masking tape is used to join the ties together. The masking tape can be used to remove the ties from the jig.

If your jig is not long enough for the length of track you are laying, insert ties into the jig, but a leave a few open slots so that you can line up the first few ties in the existing strip with the jig before connecting the two strips together.

There is a tradeoff here, so it is hard to say, and it depends on what you're doing. Flextrack tends to be a little quicker to get something
running because you lay the rail and the ties down at the same time. Handlaid track can be easier to ballast because the ballast really
does go under the rail between every pair of ties (I've also seen people put in all of the ties, ballast, and scenery before laying an inch of rail).

The biggest thing you actually gain by hand laying your own track is the skills needed to repair the track when something breaks.
I don't know how many times I've seen someone rip out a section of flex track because a heat kink caused a rail to pop out of or
break the spikes. This is a 5 minute zero cost repair with the proper tools.